Of Trout and Trees and Trying
by quintessenceofstars
Summary: Prompts are fun, for a person who loves to write I'm oddly uncreative - prompts make the little cogs in my brain spin round. Derek/Addison predivorce out in the wilderness, so to speak. Enjoy! Very short, but cute.


Author: Phelipa

Prompt: Addison/Derek, trout

Summary: Derek and Addison, pre-divorce.

Rating: G

Of Trout and Trees and Trying

Derek looked back and saw Addison perched on a particularly smooth rock, staring at her meticulously painted fingernails. He sighed and turned back to the lake, jiggling the fishing line a little in hopes of attracting a larger fish by wiggling the worm.

He heard a loud, pointed sigh from behind him and gritted his teeth – refusing to let her get to him. He heard her get up and move around before sitting back down and when he turned around again she had her back to him and was picking up a few pebbles from the rocky beach. He watched her rise again and skip the smooth ones across the crystal surface of the lake. When she'd finished she let her shoulder slump again and stared dejectedly out into the dusky horizon.

Finally fed up with her behaviour Derek huffed, "Why did you even come then?!"

She looked up at him and replied tartly, "The therapist said I had to, remember? He said we had to do things together and of all the things we could've done together you choose to go fishing for trout?!"

As she reached the end of her sentence her voice rose with irritation and her eyes blazed, "You had to go so early in the morning that I didn't even get a shower, and you know I hate fish!"

Derek paused, reeled his line in and re-cast, "Again, why did you come? You didn't have to do this with me?"

She looked at him with exasperation and stomped back to her rock, sitting down heavily (which, she discovered later, was a bad idea and resulted in a large rock-shaped bruise on her behind) and crying out,

"Because I'm trying! I'm trying to fix our marriage but because you won't do anything that interests the both of us I'm stuck out here in the wilderness waiting for my wild-man husband to catch a damn trout for breakfast!"

He felt a slight tug on the end of the line and motioned towards her, "Come here."

She pouted and shook her head but he gave her a stern look and she reluctantly rose from her spot and trudged over, dragging her feet the whole way.

"Here." He said simply, handing over the rod.

She shook her head stubbornly, "No way, you got me out here – you're not getting me to fish."

"Please Addi?" He looked at her with pleading eyes.

She relented and unhappily took the strange mechanism in her hands. He slipped his arms around her and positioned her first before moving to her hands and adjusting them on the rod. She felt a slight jerk from the water and jumped, turning her head to ask,

"What's that?"

"A fish." He murmured simply, reaching up and turning her head back to the water.

When a strong tug pulled at the end of the line, Derek put his hands over hers and tightened them on the rod, ensuring she didn't drop it.

His breath was hot in her ear as he murmured, "Reach up and start to reel it in slowly."

He saw goose bumps develop on her neck from the nearness of his breath in the cold morning but watched as she gingerly took the handle and twirled it carefully between her fingers. She was startled by the tug of resistance and opened her mouth to say something but Derek interrupted,

"Just keep reeling it in."

She put a bit more force into her movements and she could feel the weight drawing closer. She turned again to look at him and he thought he saw a glimmer of interest in her eyes, though he was sure that he was mistaken. He kissed her quickly and chastely on the cheek before admonishing,

"Pay attention Addi."

Pink spots flushed her cheeks as she turned back and focused on the fish, trying to ignore the fact that this was the closest they'd been to each other in a long time. He tightened his grasp slightly, holding her body a little closer to his, and breathed in the coconut-y smell of her hair.

She reeled in the line until she saw a splash, not to far from the shore. Derek rested his chin in the dip of her shoulder and murmured, "That's it, keep going."

She reeled it in uncertainly, unsure as to how close she actually wanted to get to the scaly creature. She jumped back in surprised and dropped the rod as the line tightened and the fish was suddenly flopping on the ground next to them.

"It's a beauty Addison!" Derek cried out, quickly grabbing the line before it could free itself.

But as he looked behind him he couldn't be sure she'd heard him as she was back about twenty feet, turned the opposite way and crying, "I'm not looking at it!"

He unhooked the fishhook from its mouth and carried it back up further on the shore. Addison was still stubbornly facing the trees and adamantly refusing to take another look at the unsightly creature she'd reeled in from the lake.

He packaged it up on his own before telling her it was ok to look and she gradually returned to his side, keeping her distance in case he decided to take the fish out again and bring it anywhere near her. He scooped up the cooler in his hand and passed her the rod to carry home. As the wandered through the small glade of trees he looked at her proudly,

"Good job! Your first try and you reeled in a pretty decent sized trout!"

She moaned, "Trout!? If you try and make me eat that for breakfast, I swear I will bring you back out here and throw you in the lake."

As she spoke she moved a little closer and, almost by instinct, Derek reached over and slipped his arm around her waist – effectively joining them at the hip. She looked up at him and gave him a peck on his cheek before murmuring,

"Thanks."

He looked up in surprise, "For what?"

She faced forward again, a soft smile playing at the corner of her lips, "For trying."

_Fin_


End file.
